When I execute an application compiled using MATLAB Compiler 4.3 (R14SP3), how can I prevent personal information such as my MATLAB preferences information from being extracted?

I have compiled an application 'test' using MATLAB Compiler 4.3 (R14SP3). Upon execution I noticed that a new folder gets created in the 'test_mcr' folder. This folder is named 'test_<string of numbers and letters>'.

Opening this folder revealed that some of the files were stored in my MATLAB preferences directory, including my MATLAB preferences file.

I want to know if there is any way to avoid the creation of this directory when my application executes.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

It is not possible to avoid having MATLAB Compiler include the preferences directory in each compiled application. The Compiler includes the user's preference information because the application may rely on it. There are two possible workarounds:

1) On UNIX, use SETENV and the ! operator to compile. For example:

!setenv MATLAB_PREFDIR /tmp/emptydir;

mcc -Nmgv test

On Windows, open a DOS command window and execute

set USERPROFILE = C:\Temp\emptydir

Start MATLAB from this DOS prompt (to use the appropriate environment variable in the MATLAB session) and execute the MCC command at the MATLAB command prompt.

Note: If you are using MATLAB Compiler 4.4 (R2006a) you can also use the SETENV function at the MATLAB command prompt

setenv('USERPROFILE','C:\Temp\emptydir');

mcc -Nmgv test

This temporarily sets the preference directory to /tmp/emptydir or C:\Temp\emptydir, and the compiled application will therefore only have the default settings (or the preference directory settings from your installation of MATLAB 7.0.4 (R14SP2)).

2) Move the contents of the preference directory, or rename the directory, before compilation, and restore afterwards. To do this on Windows, for example, execute the following command to compile the function test.m:

mymcc -m test.m

The code of the function mymcc is:

function mymcc(varargin)

% MYMCC  does the same as MCC. The only difference is that the created

%    application doesn't contain information of the MATLAB 

%    prefdir anymore.

%

%    For the description of possible options please look at the help of 

%    the command MCC.

command = 'mcc ';

for i=1:length(varargin)

      command = [command,varargin{i},' '];

end

a = prefdir;

b = regexp(a,'\','start');

c = a(b(end)+1:end);

p = cd;

cd(prefdir)

cd ..

!md tmp

cd(prefdir)

!move * ../tmp

cd(p)

% Because of the displacement MATLAB cannot access the saved preferences

% and that's why you have to indicate each time, which compiler shall be used.

try

      eval(command);

catch

      warning('WarnTests:Warning', ...

      'Calling mcc causes Error. Please check your input arguments.\n No file was compiled ...\n')

end

cd(prefdir)

cd ..

cd tmp

eval(['!move * ../',c]);

cd ..

!rmdir tmp

cd(p);

A similar function could also be written for the UNIX platform.

Note that the above workaround is not officially supported by MathWorks.